Who should attend: All those wishing to offer parenting coordination as part of their client services: family lawyers, mediators, arbitrators, parenting coordinators, and mental health and collaborative professionals. Parenting coordination is a child focused-dispute resolution process offered to separated, divorced, and divorcing parents who need assistance to more effectively co-parent, minimalize parental conflict, and implement their parenting plan. All those wishing to apply to or remain on the BC Hear the Child Society Roster of non-evaluative child interviewers should attend Day 3.

Learning level:All levels

The focus on Day 3 will be the “Voice of the Child”. The social science research on the benefits and cautions of listening to the voices of children and adolescents will be reviewed; and various ways the child’s voice can be obtained and integrated into different dispute resolution options will be identified, such as child representation, mediation, assessment, parenting coordination, and judicial processes. The factors related to the reliability of the input provided by children and adolescents, including interviewer bias, memory, suggestibility, and maturity, will be discussed. Finally, a developmentally informed interview protocol will be introduced.

All those wishing to apply to or remain on the BC Hear the Child Society Roster of non-evaluative child interviewers can attend Day 3 on its own.